* For a review of the penultimate Season 1 episode, “The Well-Tempered Clavier” – click here
* For a recap & review of the Season 2 premiere, “Journey Into Night” – click here
We begin as Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) is put together. Her skin is attached to the robotic skeleton, Bernard Lowe a.k.a Arnold (Jeffrey Wright) assembling the pieces. She comes online, not full yet physically but mentally put together as a whole. “Welcome to the world.”
In the present, she shaves The Man in Black (Ed Harris) with the blade of a knife. He continues on about the centre of the maze, how she brought him there once. For a long while the town was buried, after which Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) resurrected it. She still sees Arnold, too. And off she goes after him, Black behind her following.
William (Jimmi Simpson) continues on with former buddy Logan (Ben Barnes) tied up. He wants to find Dolores. He needs to find her. Now he’s looking for an army to help him: the Confederados and Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr) will do just fine.
Poor ole Teddy Flood (James Marsden), he wakes up after another day of being murdered only to start the whole Sweetwater experience over again. Except time starts slowing down. He sees corpses everywhere he turns, remnants of his former life. Then he sees Dolores in her blue dress, a wolf running past the dead. And then all returns to normal, as Teddy ends up in a quick draw with a stranger. Life carries on. But he’s intent on finding Dolores. Seems like all roads lead to her.
She finds Arnold kneeling in a pew of the church we see over and over. “I know where your maze is,” she tells him gladly. We switch back and forth between her with Arnold, and her with Black. She’s lost between the two spaces somewhere. At the church’s graveyard, she uncovers her own grave. A cross with her name on it. When she digs into the earth she finds a tin, and inside it is the maze’s pattern. Arnold tells her about the maze. It concerns consciousness. First, it started with a pyramid, then it became the maze: “Consciousness is not a journey upward, it‘s a journey inward.” Arnold hasn’t been pushing her towards hearing his voice. He’s been pushing her to hear her own. But how does Dolores give Black his answers when she hasn’t quite figured them out for herself?
What we see more of is how Arnold wanted the hosts to be, versus what Ford wanted for his vision. Then there’s Arnold and his plan: he wanted Dolores to kill all the other hosts to prevent Ford from doing his will with the park. Is that why Teddy killed everybody in that town? Did she enlist his help?
Well we also come to find Black has bought Westworld. “This place feels more real than the real world,” he says, mocking the place for all its lies. He wants to make the place very real; “one true thing.” But she believes in William, that he’ll come to find her.

Ole Will. He and Lawrence are scoping out the next move ahead. This is going to involve a good deal of violence. More with each episode now, each scene almost, we see William is turning his back on that former nice guy persona. He’s really getting into the swing of things. Out in the real world, Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) and Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) discuss her plans of nudging Dr. Ford away from Westworld. I just keep thinking everybody’s underestimating the old guy.
In other parts of the company, Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton) is taking things up a notch. She’s making adjustments to park security, as well as her “friends” such as Hector Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro) and Armistice (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal). Oh, this I can’t wait for!
Charlotte reveals to Ford the board has voted for his retirement. After he premieres his new narrative. Things are changing at Westworld.
The creepy lab tech who has sex with the hosts is tasked with taking care of Hector. This dude is a serious weirdo. He puts in some earbuds, ready to rock. Now you know something bad’s about to happen. One tech has to slip his hands in Armistice’s mouth, which gets him a digit bitten off. Meanwhile, rapey tech is greasing up for a session with Hector, and the other guy gets his finger fed to him. No longer can the techs contain the hosts. More people are about to die. “They don‘t look like gods,” says Armistice of the real people when Maeve arrives to round them up. The hosts then finds who revised them to be able to wake from their sleep manually: Arnold, or so it seems. It’s a lot of fun to see the humans frightened of the technology of whom they assumed to be masters.

Dolores takes a bad beating from The Man in Black, as Flood and William are both headed for her. Who’ll get there first? Right now, anybody would do. Or, can William actually find her? Black knows about William, and where his path actually took him. Is he really The Man in Black? IS HE? TELL US WESTWORLD! You’re sure teasing us well. I can dig it.
We see William, becoming more violent as time passes. Getting a taste for murder. Sure wouldn’t surprise me at this point if he and Black were one and the same. Then, we finally get to see him pick up that black hat. After so much speculation, here we are at a definitive identity. We watch as William went back to Sweetwater, searching for Dolores, as he couldn’t stop thinking of her for a second. And she didn’t remember a thing, not like the love that existed in him. He saw it for what it was: all a game.
And now Dolores sees nobody is coming for her. Not like she thought. Black wants to go further, to find what lies at the centre of the maze. Even better? Dolores needs no man, no one to save her. She has discovered herself. She’s heard her own voice, like Arnold hoped. Everything has changed. When Dolores takes a knife to the gut, she does get a little help from none other than Teddy; the one man in her life that won’t ever change.Dolores: “Time undoes even the mightiest of creatures. Just look what it‘s done to you.”
Outside in the Westworld facilities, Maeve and her band of merry hosts head for the basement, filled to the brim with inactive robots. Also where Arnold a.k.a Bernie lies in a pool of his own blood. And now he’s being brought back online, with intense purpose.

On the plains of Sweetwater, Ford and William meet. The doctor says there is nothing at the centre of the maze, not for the guests. It’s just a game. William needs more, to validate himself and his life’s meaning. “This is your petty little kingdom, Robert.”
What exactly will Ford’s newest narrative be? I feel like everyone’s in for a damn big surprise.
Someone altered Maeve’s storyline. She’s been tasked by somebody to escape. “These are my decisions, no one else‘s,” she claims. Someone has been controlling her. But WHO? WHO? Nevertheless, the hosts are rising up, they’re manipulating people and the system. Westworld’s soon going to have major trouble on their hands.
Dolores tells Teddy about being trapped in their world, forcibly, made to feel and think everything, made to do what their makers want. Then she dies in his arms. One of many deaths she’s already experienced, and surely will experience again. Unless the uprising changes all that for good.
Then we pause a moment. It’s all part of the new narrative “Journey Into Night” by Ford. A new beginning, for him, for the park. Charlotte, Lee, they all assume this is the end for Dr. Ford. I don’t see it. There’s something left up his sleeve. He has Teddy taken off to be cleaned up, but Dolores, she’s sent to the “old field lab.”
And just as the techs of Westworld track down their problems, the place locks tight. Security measures in full force. Maeve, Armistice, Hector, they head up to the higher floors. Their plan all but in full action. Men with guns show up, and that’s only the beginning of what’s sure to be a wild fight. With real guns in hand, there’s no telling what the hosts can accomplish. And they’re loving it. At a certain point Armistice stays behind to let the others go ahead, taking on armed men likely to gun her down. Hector gets left as well, as Maeve prefers to go it alone.
Oh, these violent delights indeed have violent ends.Hector (to Armistice): “Die well.”

In the lab Ford takes care of Dolores. He talks about her love of painting; Arnold encouraged it with a painting of “The Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo on the wall of the lab. Then Ford introduces the second coming of Arnold in Bernard. This rocks her world. We see a little more on Arnold, his maze. We see more of Ford and his argument with Arnold about the park, Arnold’s loading of the Wyatt narrative. So much to absorb, but incredibly written. This leads to Dolores killing Bernie a.k.a Arnold, and Teddy, as well. Before putting a gun to her own head. This was Arnold’s plan, although it didn’t work. The park still opened. Life went on. Fitting how Ford quotes Oppenheimer in this scene, worth mention.Arnold: “The stakes must be real. Irreversible.”
Maeve goes on ahead, further into the real world. She further discovers her daughter is alive, in the park, of course. And out she goes, into the world of human beings, walking amongst them unknown. She boards a train and leaves Westworld, headed anywhere. Or will the desire to be with her daughter change that?
We find out more about Ford. He isn’t all bad. He encourages the hosts, particularly Dolores and Arnold/Bernie, to discover themselves. To escape. And then he too leaves the fake world behind. His narrative is the narrative he’s created to set the hosts free.
Dolores has discovered the voice inside herself, the guide. She is at the centre of the maze: consciousness, personhood, humanity. “Who I must become.” Who every host must become.

In the last moments, those numerous hosts from the basement of discarded people encroach on the people listening to Ford speak, coming out of the darkness. And in front of the crowd, Dolores shoots Dr. Ford in the head. Even William in his tux takes a bullet. And the hosts start their massacre of the onlooking crowd with their drinks and their fancy finger foods.
Thus ends the first season of an amazing series.
In a scene after the credits we watch Armistice cut her own arm off then attack a group of soldiers. Bad ass.
Wow! I saw a lot of these things building, but holy shit. This was an impressive finale that held me from moment one. I really need Season 2 already. The story can lead so many places. What will Westworld become at the mercy of the hosts? Will we see them lead an army out of the park, or will they stake a claim for their world as their own? We’ll just have to wait and see.

* For a review of the previous episode, “Trace Decay” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “The Bicameral Mind” – click here
Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton) – where are you going, where have you been? Right now she’s back out in the lab. Fellow host Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) checks her out. He tells her about the “unscripted incident” that’s brought her there. Will she start to use her power of influence over Bernie? Oh, I’d love to see that. For now he discovers the changes in her code, finding it rather suspicious. He calls Dr. Ford (Anthony Hopkins) immediately, but Maeve reaches out. She recognises Bernie from somewhere before. And then, she freezes his motor functions stopping him dead. This is when he has to come to grips with the “hideous fiction” of their lives as hosts. What we’re seeing is the beginning of the robots rising up, coming together. Meanwhile, Maeve is headed back to Sweetwater, as Bernie stumbles back into motion confused yet enlightened all the same. Disturbing to watch him go through this whole ordeal.
Logan (Ben Barnes) is in the desert with his captives William (Jimmi Simpson) and Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood). “There are more important things going on here than your war games,” William says. He tries explaining there’s something different about Dolores. And he wants to get her out of the park. But she starts wondering that if the world is so wonderful in reality, why do they die to get into Westworld? Such an amazing and perfect moment. So succinct, on the nose. Now I’m afraid Logan’s planning on killing Dolores.
In the meantime, Bernie goes to see the doctor. Ford is downstairs in the sea of washed up hosts, deactivated in the creepy warehouse. They talk about their relationship, as well as Arnold. What Bernie wants is access to all his memories, to find whether Arnold has another purpose for him, the other hosts. Ford beats around the bush.
Until a lobotomised Clementine (Angela Sarafyan) is brought in to point a gun on the ole doc; she’s been reset and she can actually do damage. Ah, tricky Bernie. Once Ford activates Lowe’s memories, they flood back heavy. He goes from past to present, everything in between. He sees his wife, his sick child, Theresa (Sidse Babett Knudsen). Is he losing his mind? Well, we do see that it was him who grabbed Elsie in the dark. Shit. The devious Dr. Ford and his “uncomfortable decisions.” What a rat bastard.

Out in the desert, Logan taunts William over his wife at home, real life outside Westworld. He mocks William’s feelings for Dolores. Logan decides to give his friend a wake up call. He stabs her in the gut, ripping her flesh open to reveal the robotic insides. This not only sends her into shock, it deals William a devastating blow to the mind. Then Dolores fights back, she grabs a gun and start to fire on Logan and his men.
She takes off into the desert with the voice of Arnold in her head: “Remember.” And suddenly she’s okay, running on into the night.
In other parts, Hector Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro) and his crew bed down for the night when Maeve comes across their camp. She is by far my favourite character, not only bad ass but smart. Maeve is taking upon herself the task of changing the narrative, or trying to at least. She predicts what will happen next, so that when it does Hector understands completely, and then she steps in and blows away the only other person left. “I want you to see exactly what the gods have in store for you.” When she opens the safe the gang stole from Sweetwater, it’s empty. Like everything else in their little world. She’s bringing the other hosts over to her side, showing them the way. Hector starts seeing what’s been right before his eyes but what he’s been programmed not to see the entire time.
Poor Billy, Big Willy style. He’s confronting the hard truths of Westworld. Logan tries to show him how they’ve bonded, discovering things together. About life. About themselves. They share a drink and everything’s fine. Is it, though?
The Man in Black (Ed Harris) and Teddy Flood (James Marsden) are still tied in the desert. Things aren’t looking good. Not at all. Wyatt (Sorin Brouwers) isn’t around – he’s in Escalante, most likely. Where he and Teddy shot down their fellow soldiers in a vicious mutiny. “It was like the devil himself had taken control of me,” Teddy claims. Or is that really the case? Looks more like he was a lawman and he took the place out single handed. Oh, god damn. Plus he gets stabbed in the guts by their captor. A brutal end to Teddy’s current storyline. As for Black, he’s knocked out cold. When he wakes in the morning, he’s left on his own, tied to a horse by the noose on his neck. Precarious, to say the least. That is a Western scene right there if I’ve ever seen one! Black manages to get the knife out of Teddy’s chest in time to cut the rope before the horse hangs him. Afterwards, Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) shows up to have a chat with Black about Theresa’s death, “the game” and all those things. We find out a little more about Black and his involvement in things behind the scenes, his role alongside Charlotte, et cetera.

Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) gets word about a signal from Elsie Hughes’ tablet from a sector that’s not been worked on for weeks. Very curious. I keep trying to figure out what Stubbs means in all this, because he seems like a genuine character. I’m wondering more and more if he’ll play a bigger role at some point, or if he’ll wind up dispatched by one of the out of control hosts. When he goes to check out the signal from Elsie, a tribe of Natives find him. And he can’t get any of the master controls working to stop them from tackling him.
In the desert, Logan wakes to find a massacre around him. Bodies all over. Arms and legs and appendages everywhere. At the middle is Billy Boy. He’s been having quite the morning. Are we seeing him become The Man in Black here? Is that what’s happening? He’s going full psycho on Logan, wanting to track down Dolores now. Uh oh. Or, is this a bit of red herring served up?
Other memories leak back to Bernard, he goes through a moment where he saw Maeve kill herself in an “empathic response” not usual for hosts. Ford chastises him for thinking of it too much. More memories of the past, then back to the present again. Furthermore, we see Bernie asking Ford about Arnold, as cuts take us back and forth to Dolores searching out the very same man. She finds a town, one she remembers. Ford keeps on telling Bernie about Arnold wanting to actually create consciousness. But all Bernie wants is to “go back to the beginning” of his own memories. Ford returns him to the moment of his son’s death, the “cornerstone” around which his entire host identity is built. In effect, this returns him to a state of normalcy. Tabula rasa. Starting over at the moment of his conception when Ford crafts him in the likeness of Arnold.
On and on Dolores is called out to that familiar church, through its doors, where people sit in a state of mourning, crying and raving to themselves. In a confessional-type booth Dolores sits in a chair which takes her to a lower level. It’s like the dingy basement of an ageing hospital. Corpses lay about all over the place, as if it’s a downgraded version of the lab space they have in Westworld. But out of nowhere, Dolores is in her costume again. She sees hosts in rooms going through narratives. Then, a young Ford appears shouting at Arnold in the distance. She makes it to another basement where it looks like the modern Westworld lab. Dolores goes right back to that moment where she returns to Arnold, as they sit and converse together. Two hosts lost in a cyclone-like narrative, swirling around and around again. Are they able to break free? And who’ll break first? The way this sequence is filmed, with Dolores on her own and Bernard recounting his memories of being ‘born’ as it were, is downright fascinating. Proof that Westworld is dominating in the cinematography and creative areas of the writing together.

And when Dolores comes back from downstairs, to the surface, in walks The Man in Black to horrify her. Down in the Westworld lab Clementine still holds a gun to Ford. For his part, Bernie is piecing it all together. Then he orders Clementine to pull the trigger. Only there’s a “backdoor” built into the hosts, by Bernie himself. Shiiiiiet. Now Lowe is made to put a gun to his head while the doctor leaves him. Just as the true voice of Arnold comes out, for a second.
Ford leaves and we see Bernie in the other room, pulling the trigger.

Holy fuck. This episode was a god damn roller coaster! I can’t get over this series. I love it. Either way, finale is next up and it’s titled “The Bicameral Mind” and I’m way too excited for it, to see how HBO will wow us in the lead up to another hopefully fantastic season.

* For a review of the previous episode, “Trompe L’Oeil” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “The Well-Tempered Clavier” – click here
Poor Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright), having recently dispatched Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen) at the command of his maker, Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins). “The anguish, the horror, the pain; it‘s remarkable. A thing of beauty,” Ford says watching on as his creation becomes the author of himself, in a twisted sense. There are no answers for the host that is Bernie. He only gets to help tell the new story Ford wishes to tell. He is at the command of the doctor. Nobody seems capable of stopping him, either. Not Arnold, not Bernard. Who’ll stop this man? Or, more importantly, where will he stop?
So Ford sets Lowe about deleting their ties to Theresa’s death. Once finished, the doctor will free Bernard of all his painful memories. His whole world has changed in an instant.
At the saloon, “The House of the Rising Sun” is on the player piano and Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton) starts another day. Clementine Pennyfeather is no longer who she was once, but another face on her, a new identity in the same old name. But everything is different for Maeve now, time nearly stands still and she remembers bits of another life, before the saloon and the prostitution and Sweetwater. The technicians try explaining to her that hosts are basically so perfected that they experience memories in full, rather than actual bits; they relive them. Maeve realises the memories are only just “a story” meant to enslave her. She’s determined to break out. Whether needing an army or not. She wants the technicians to give her power, to control other hosts: “Time to write my own fucking story.”
On the plains of Westworld, William (Jimmi Simpson) and Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) ride towards Sweetwater. They stop to find a massacre in the desert. Arrows puncturing bodies, bloody spilled everywhere. One man lays still alive, barely. He gives them information about the ambush earlier. Nearby in the water Dolores sees a vision of herself, and a voice saying: “Come find me.” Very spooky. Arnold, no?
Theresa’s corpse is located in a ravine. Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) figures it was a slip and fall accident. He believes she was transmitting evidence of some sort and fell. Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) is obviously not pleased to hear that, hiding her true feelings under the surface. And of course Dr. Ford plays it off. Hale brings up the “new narrative,” that Theresa believed they ought to delay the debut. But you know Ford is a master of words, of worlds, of all sorts of devious things. Once more Bernard is the Head of Behaviour, and everything is back in working order for the doctor’s manipulations. With all that commotion, the technicians shoo Maeve off from her latest learning spree, though she’s got things worked out well enough. Plus, she knows about Arnold, at least his name. From there who knows what else she’ll discover. If those technicians don’t watch out she’s bound to get the upper hand, more than she does already.
The Man in Black (Ed Harris) rides with Teddy Flood (James Marsen), talking about how “the game is rigged” and this triggers a memory in Flood; he remembers a previous chat with Black, on another storyline. Oh, how marvellous! I love all these little pieces, slowing coming together for the hosts. They’re becoming more aware all the time. Soon, Black and Teddy come upon a massacre courtesy of Wyatt (Sorin Brouwers). “He destroyed my world,” laments Flood to one living victim. From the forest comes a massive man dressed in a minotaur outfit, swinging a weapon at Black and Flood. Soon, they take him down. But again, Teddy has flashbacks to a time before with Black, seeing him haul Dolores screaming in the night. And this time Teddy turns on his new buddy, knocking him out. Oh, shit. Didn’t see that coming. Are we about to see The Man in Black in a precarious situation? Once the hosts become aware, it’s only a matter of time before they start actually start hurting people; for real.

The technicians have Maeve up getting a few modifications. She needs to be shut down in order for them to update. Will the tech shut her down for good, or reformat her?
In other parts of the Westworld complex, Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) works on a new cannibal motif. He and Hale have a talk about Theresa, the company, all types of things. Charlotte’s trying to drive wedges between anybody and Ford. She starts in on Lee. Tsk, tsk.
And finally, Maeve comes alive. Reformatted. She’s had some changes in her “core code” and this immediately involves the cutting the throat of the tech who didn’t help her; he gets it cauterised, so it’s all good. Things are getting very, very exciting.
“Back to Black” by Amy Winehouse plays on the piano, as Maeve goes back to work in Sweetwater. Only the memories come back stronger and stronger. She sees The Man in Black come for her and her daughter. He stabs her in the gut, which she all but literally feels in the present time. The memories are even physical. Maeve now can control other hosts, programming them on a whim, from the new Clementine to the barkeep. She makes the story flow, giving them each their purpose. This gets most interesting as Hector Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro) and the crew arrive for “mayhem” as usual. Maeve manipulates the Sheriff into stepping down from any violence, though he’s killed anyways. She turns the Marshals on one another, continuing to change the narrative with every step.
Dr. Ford meets with host Bernie, talking about their new trajectory of action concerning Hale and the recent developments. “Ever the student of human nature” Bernie knows Ford is under more strain. The saddest is seeing Lowe stuck halfway somewhere between human and host, unable to distinguish what exactly is real. Not understanding his “imagined suffering.” He doesn’t know the difference between man and machine. Ford reveals this is what drove Arnold to madness eventually. Regardless, Bernie is let free from his memories by the doctor.
Merciful, or tragic? Both.

Dolores makes it back home. Except everything feels odd, something is different. Then the bodies begin to drop. The memories of those streets filled with the dead again. She sees herself, gun in hand. Ready to shoot herself. But she cuts back to standing with William in the desert. “When are we?” she asks. Her mind’s nearly melting. She loses a grip on whatever reality she’d been programmed with in the beginning. Or perhaps she gets closer to understanding where Arnold is pushing her. But William and Dolores come across Logan, and he isn’t bringing any good cheer.

Among the basement, Hale and Lee search through the warehoused hosts. They come to Dolores’ father. Charlotte wants to upload a ton of data to the host and send him back in. Yikes. She doesn’t realise exactly which host she’s picked. And she leaves Lee to program him for re-entry.
Stubbs is happy to see Bernard back. He offers condolences on what happened to Theresa, because of how close they were, and when Bernie responds with no semblance of understanding this clearly piques Stubbs in his interest. Threads are starting to show.
Out in the desert, Teddy has Black all tied up for the night. I wonder what he’ll do. For the time being he’s going to beat the shit out of him. Black responds by mocking the host. Then revealing a bit about himself, that his wife killed herself in the bath, their life disappeared. His entire life fell apart. A brutally sad tale. He talks of finding Maeve as a homesteader, too. Murdering her and her daughter. All for the feeling. Maeve didn’t die, though. She ran off bleeding with her daughter in tow. The maze “revealed itself” to Black then and there. The quest to find Arnold’s game ahead of him now, all the time.
And while we see those memories, we see Maeve slit the new Clementine’s throat in front of the saloon. Out of control. She may have stronger powers, but she can’t escape those memories. Luckily, she can make other hosts do her bidding.

We also see Maeve after losing her child, out in the lab with Dr. Ford and Lowe. Her “cognition is fragmented” until they go to work. She wants to keep the pain, but it’s erased and stricken from the mind. Later she would be programmed as the Madam of a whore house in the saloon.
Black must best Wyatt to figure out the maze, the final steps. No matter what. Will Teddy kill The Man in Black? Or help him? He can’t pull the trigger. Not to mention the woman they saved, she stabs Teddy and kills him. She’s a mole, for Wyatt himself who waits in the shadows.
What a wild episode! Just a great follow-up to the last one. Excitement and tension is at an all-time high in the series. Looking forward to “The Well-Tempered Clavier” next. We’re getting close to Season 1’s finish.

* For a review of the previous episode, “Contrapasso” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “Trompe L’Oeil” – click here
Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton) is honestly my favourite character in this entire series. He struggle comes as intense; this episode is no change. She walks through a day not noticing men shot around her, not noticing all the horror of Sweetwater. “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead plays on the player piano in the saloon. Maeve and Clementine Pennyfeather (Angela Sarafyan) talk their dialogue, they drink their drinks, they go about the programmed day, as “newcomer” guests show up for their various adventures and paid storylines. When Maeve takes one of them upstairs for a romp in the sack, taunting him when he’s unable to please her. She puts his hand around her throat though, and it’s a different story. She welcomes it, wanting to die. All to wake up out on the table in the lab, the technician in front of her.
At the same time, Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward) talks with Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) about her recent discovery. The hosts at Westworld are being used for “industrial espionage” and now things are getting dicey. Seems that the host who went berserk on Elsie is an older model. However, this requires Bernie to head downstairs – Floor B82, strictly confidential with tight security. It’s a sketchy-looking place, shaking lights, old computer systems. Lowe gets into things comparing data to find an anomaly. Not only that, there are others. Hosts which “aren‘t registered with the new system.” So what exactly are they all doing? And how long until something worse than what happened with Elsie happens?
Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) freezes the little Mexican town, having a gawk at his real estate and planning for new, big things. A simple “carry on” and everything gets moving again; an entire world built on his command. He notices the carving of a maze on a table nearby. Cut to his office, full of host faces and all kinds of interesting little things. Ford has a sketchbook, containing lots of drawings, including one that looks to be who I assume is Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), as well as a house, his church, so on.
But most importantly? The maze.
Elsewhere, The Man in Black (Ed Harris) rides with Teddy Flood (James Marsden). The latter tells his new buddy about the maze being a Native American myth, involving a man who can’t seem to die that eventually builds a maze only he can solve. Interesting; sound like somebody? Poor Teddy only wants to find Dolores.

The technician talks with Maeve about her character, what she was made to do as a host. He tells her there’s a distinction between being “born” and being “made” and that there’s also little recognisable difference between humans and hosts. Except hosts are terribly smart. When they’re controlled. What I dig is that Maeve seems outside of that control, somehow. The technician pairs his device with her to show the process of what she’s said, the way the program assigns her dialogue, shows her entire thought process and where improvisation happens. Then suddenly it overloads her mind and it looks like there is trouble. After a bit of programming he brings Maeve back. Problem is she wants to see what’s outside the lab. She witnesses the entire operation, the washing of the bloody host corpses, the moulds of the hosts being created and pumped full of blood, the skin coming alive; a truly gorgeous sequence yet sad in tone. Amazing stuff. We, alongside Maeve, get to see the animals created, life made at the hands of technicians and other robotics. Then further on are the simulations where hosts are programmed to their specific roles. What Maeve sees is her literal entire existence fabricated before her eyes. After she witnesses a commercial, seeing herself there onscreen, they head back downstairs. How will this ultimately affect her? Will she remember more? Well, right now she winds up taking hostage the other technician who shows up threatening to bring his colleague to QA. She… changes his mind.
Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen) brings Bernard to the attention of Dr. Ford knowing they’re together. She decides their “indiscretion” is finished. She accuses him of an inability of being impartial, with everybody including Ford. Sort of cold. Brings to mind the idea of the difference between human beings and the hosts: the hosts are a lot less cruel, even the worst of them, than the humans. I feel like Theresa is someone that’ll go off the rails soon enough. She feels highly reactionary as a person. We’ll have to wait and see. She goes to see Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman), who’s on leave, complaining about Dr. Ford and his latest work which has displaced hosts. There’s venom in Theresa, as she doesn’t make any better friends with anyone, continually fighting to stay at the top. What’s she going to do to stay there?

Back with Black and Teddy, they’re on the search to locate Wyatt. They use a couple soldier uniforms and pass through a camp, where Wyatt’s left his bloody mark. Along the way someone recognises Mr. Flood and pulls a gun. This turns into a nasty situation for the pair of gunslingers, even Black can’t hold off that many soldiers.
Lee lounges and meets a woman. After a bit of chat she questions him about “control” and he, in a drunken state, goes off about the whole thing being a “vanity project.” The bar cuts him off by request of Ms. Cullen. I feel like that lady at the bar will turn up again.
Elsie wants Bernie to keep helping her with heading off the espionage happening with the hosts. She wants to use the whole thing to get herself ahead. I feel for Lowe. He seems to be consistently stuck between a rock and a hard place. He heads in to a place labelled Sector 17, full of trees and fields. He soon tracks down a house where he sees a man picking up a pile of wood from out front. Inside, he comes across a man and his family. He can’t seem to control these robots, either. They only respond to Dr. Ford, who shows up quickly. “Survivors of the wreck of time,” he tells Bernie; they are “first generation hosts“. Ford gives his friend a tour around the robotics, which is pretty damn awesome visually. This was a vision built by Arnold, one from the memories of Ford’s childhood. Something the doctor worked on over the years. And all of it makes Lowe wonder. But can’t he understand? Surely he can, someone in a way seeking methods to reignite the past. Maybe seeing those things in another person makes him realise how foolish and possibly dangerous they can become. This all sends Lowe on a quest to find out the names of first generation hosts out there.
Teddy’s about to get branded. He remembers himself walking through a town with Wyatt, killing everyone in sight. Then he and Black make their escape. Teddy ends up on the machine gun, again killing everyone in sight. He makes The Man in Black look like a kitten: “You think you know someone.”
There’s espionage going on from within. Elsie reports to Lowe, and he starts worrying about her safety. Uh oh. I like her a lot, she’s smart. That probably means nothing good, for her. Looks as if the high tech futuristic technology can be undercut by older, less traceable technology from previous systems. And who’s the culprit? Is Theresa behind it, or somebody else entirely? Elsie traces a signal to find a relay setup by whoever’s doing the spying. It takes her to a musty old room filled with artefacts from other stories Westworld likely tried once upon a time. There she manages to open a box where the relay provides her – hopefully – good information.
Bernard goes to see Theresa about some of the things he’s stumbled upon. He tells her about his doubts re: Ford. He gets a call from Elsie, confirming Theresa as the spy. Ah, I fucking knew it! I knew it! But I’m concerned for Bernard.
With the technicians, Maeve tries to make a couple changes to her character makeup. The greasy technician tries talking her out of it, but she’s aware of other options due to her new relationship with the other technician. She does get her “alterations” and I’m quite interested in what’s about to happen next. The technicians see there’s somebody else already making changes to Maeve. Someone higher up. Nevertheless she convinces the technicians to make her more perceptive, less receptive to pain. Oh, my.
More info from Elsie. It isn’t only Theresa. Someone else is retasking hosts, old models specifically. Big time modifications to “prime directives” that could possibly allow violence from hosts against guest. Who does she believe did it all? Arnold. Motherfucking Arnold. How’s that possible?
In a lab Ford has the young boy from his host fantasy world answering questions. It’s, in fact as I’d imagined, a young version of himself. Little Robert. He killed an animal, which disturbs the older version. “A voice” told him to do it. It was Arnold.
Just as I suspected, Elsie finds further and probably damning evidence. Yet someone’s lurking in the shadows, now they’ve got her.

This was another solid episode. Plenty of intrigue that I find exciting, plus they’re never giving up too much. Bits and pieces with every chapter. Next is titled “Trompe L’Oeil” and it’ll be of interest to see particularly what goes down when Maeve heads back into Sweetwater all pumped up. Yowzahs.

* For a review of the previous episode, “Dissonance Theory” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “The Adversary” – click here
Another chat between Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) and that cowboy, Old Bill (Michael Wincott), one of the oldest in the park, as the doctor tells him about the saddest thing he’d ever seen. A story about a dog and a cat, the latter being torn “to pieces” by the former. It’s really an allegory for humanity, or the pursuit of greatness by those who aren’t sure what they’ll do with it when they find it. They may just grab hold and hang on too hard until there’s nothing left.
Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) gradually moves from the path of her narrative with each passing episode. She finds herself still with William (Jimmi Simpson) and his buddy Logan (Ben Barnes), though her mind wanders. They make it into a nearby town full of all degenerate sorts, apparently. Logan talks about their company and some of the stuff outside Sweetwater. For his part, William doesn’t dig this town: “Whoever designed this place, you get the feeling they don‘t think very much of people.” Mercenaries arrive, we discover this all a part of a bigger game of war. Hmm. Sinister, or exciting? Or both?
The Man in Black (Ed Harris) is busy still hauling Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr.) about, saying he’s on the hunt for the “big bad wolf.” He’s also got Teddy Flood (James Marsden) in tow, having saved him awhile back. Black mentions a friend of his, whomever that could possibly be, always say there’s a path for everybody; remember that, could be significant at some point, maybe. Meanwhile, the young boy who’d been talking to Dr. Ford at one time happens upon the group, being sent to fetch water for them. Because right now Lawrence is getting his throat slit. Not a nice sight for sweet English boys’ eyes. Considering Black drains Lawrence’s blood into his water pouch.
Outside, a couple technicians are checking out Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton) again after her recent shootout. They notice her incision, as somebody were looking for something specific. Will they catch on?
All that blood was a makeshift transfusion for Teddy, to bring him back up to speed. Then he talks about how the humanity of the hosts is “cost effective” and laments how things were once upon a time. He mentions Dolores, too. He says a few fellas made off with her, and that gets Teddy on his feet again.
And what of Dolores? She keeps having flashbacks, seeing those corpses littered everywhere around her. William keeps her mind off things, but I keep wondering how much longer until she starts making connections like Maeve. Right now she talks about hoping for her life to change. When he talks of the real world, it doesn’t just roll off Dolores. She notices, and it sort of shakes William a bit. When a Day of the Dead parade comes through town Dolores sees a vision of herself in its crowd. Before passing out. When she’s brought out by Dr. Ford “in a dream,” a.k.a in a lab, they have a short talk. He speaks of Arnold, the one who created her so many years ago. That’s the voice she keeps hearing in her little daydreams, calling to come find him. Turns out Arnold had wanted her to help bring Westworld down. But Ford tries to make sure Dolores’ world is only heroes and villains, a black-and-white dichotomy instead of anything too complex. In the dark though, she still speaks to somebody: is it Arnold?

One of the technicians who worked on Maeve is doing some kind of experiments with a bird. He wants to be a coder, but his partner tells him he’ll only ever be a “butcher.”
Back with William and Logan they come across a reincarnated Lawrence. Ahh, very interesting! Suddenly, Dolores starts making deals. She helps get Logan and William in with Lawrence on a job with the Confederados to get hold of some explosives. Regarding Lawrence, this doesn’t mean anything re: The Man in Black & William, because the timelines aren’t made positively clear. It’s suggestive, no doubt. Nothing definitive still. Anyways, the gang get their latest adventure kicked off, confronting a wagon. Things start off fine then get incredibly tense, a gunfight erupting with a bunch of hosts getting shot. They make out well, obviously, though William doesn’t seem to take much joy, if any, in killing. Regardless if it’s fake.
Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward) is working with a host who’s got more dick than brains. Literally. She happens to see the host that tried killing her being brought for disposal. Elsie ends up catching a technician on camera banging one of the hosts, like a “creepy necro perv,” so she uses that to get in to see her would-be killer host. She takes her findings to Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright): a laser-based satellite uplink. The hosts are being used to smuggle information out of the park.
At a freaky orgy party, Nine Inch Nails’ “Something I Can Never Have” plays on strings in the background. People fuck. Some are painted in gold. Logan, of course, loves it. William and Dolores sit on a couch, sort of equally repulsed in their own ways. Logan ends up in William’s face, they get very personal, especially the former. He digs into William, hard. At the same time Dolores wanders through the party, eventually coming upon a fortune teller with her Tarot cards. One of them laid in front of her is “the maze” – and a vision of herself reappears, telling her to follow it. She also grabs hold of a string in her forearm, pulling it bloody, her skin opening like latex. It isn’t real. But it scares her. Out in the street Lawrence is filling dead bodies in their coffins with explosives. He isn’t giving it over to the Confederados. Now, William is becoming wildly disillusioned with the creepiness of the whole game. There’s bigger problems, as the explosives turn out to be not explosive at all. And Logan takes the brunt of the fallout, being left behind by William. Dolores ends up shooting down a few men to save her new man. “I imagined a story where I didn’t have to be the damsel,” she tells William while they flee and catch a ride on a passing train. Landing right in the lap of Lawrence. This is actually the first time he introduces himself as such, since they’re all acquainted. And once more Dolores sees the mark of the maze on a coffin in the train: “I‘m coming,” she says. To whom? Arnold? God, I love the suspense.

Back to the Man in Black – could he be William though? It’s intriguing – and Teddy. The pair drop by a bar. One where they run into Dr. Ford for a drink. This is a huge scene! Ford wonders exactly what Black is seeking. “I always felt like this place was missing a real villain, hence my humble contribution,” he tells the doctor. They talk about the working of the park, Black wonders if there’s anybody fit to stop him. We know for sure he’s headed for whatever happens to lie at the centre of that mysterious maze. What is it exactly? Does it represent a physical space, or could it be a component in the robots themselves? No telling. Yet. Either way, the Man in Black is dead set on finding the purpose, the truth behind it all. We also see that the hosts are quite protective of their maker, as well. So many mysteries in the artificial world of Westworld’s creations. So much to unravel.
Out in the lab the technician working on Maeve goes back to the bird. He calibrates a little then the bird flies around the room, like magic. Maeve, she’s up and about to greet the technician, Felix, and let the bird perch on her fingertip. She also wants to have a little chat with him. I wonder exactly what she’ll tell him. What sort of secrets could spill from her lips, and what is Felix getting himself into?

An interesting episode, I must say. Lots to think about, as usual. I can’t help but wonder more about those theories surrounding the Man in Black. Next episode is titled “The Adversary” and I’m sure we’ll see more on ole Black himself.

* For a review of the previous episode, “The Stray” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “Contrapasso” – click here
Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) is tinkering away at Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), as usual. She tells him that losing everyone she’s loved “hurts so badly.” She speaks of grief. As if she knows the feeling. Like instead of being a robot, she’s become human in her emotion. But it’s all a “scripted dialogue.”
Is the machinery at Westworld becoming more sentient than it ought to? One thing’s for sure: Dolores believes “there may be something wrong with this world,” like an evil lurks below it all. Then Lowe tells Dolores of a game called The Maze. He wants her to play. Apparently if she can play it and succeed, she may also find freedom.
And what exactly is the greater purpose of Westworld’s grand illusion? We know there are… levels. However, what does that mean, exactly?
When Dolores wakes up on the plains of Sweetwater she’s with William (Jimmi Simpson), who last whisked her away from trouble in the previous episode. Back at the saloon, Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton) and Clementine Pennyfeather (Angela Sarafyan) chat while The Cure’s “A Forest” plays on the player piano. Really dig the song choices, especially how the fit in anachronistically with the Western setting. All of a sudden Maeve’s world goes funny. She sees blood all over Clementine. Then she’s on the floor. A man fires his gun into people around the saloon, over and over. The sick fantasy of a player enacted on the helpless hosts. Just another day in Sweetwater. Robot life. Afterwards, in come the cleanup team to get things sorted for the next team of players visiting the park.
Then Maeve snaps back. Everything is fine. Clementine’s still yammering on. Ah, the flashbacks of a previous day, a death some time before. But it’s set Maeve off and nothing is the same as it was before. She continually flashes back and forth between the present and those awful memories. So, she draws a picture of a man in a Hazmat-like suit. Before finding a bunch of similar drawings beneath a floorboard in her bedroom.
Out in the lab, Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward) is running Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen) over the violent malfunction of the stray from last episode. The one who smashed its own head in with a rock. Bernard drops by to check in. But it seems Theresa is taking over, sick of how things are going lately. Like any right-minded person, Elsie’s worried this problem is spreading like an infection through the hosts. And she airs those grievances to Bernard. He’s lost, though. Lost in the memory of his own loss, that of his boy. He is blinded by love and science at once and I don’t think he’s the best judge of who’s doing what right at the moment.

William wants to take Dolores back to Sweetwater, while his buddy Logan (Ben Barnes) would rather kill her off. It’s only a game, right? In other parts of the world, The Man in Black (Ed Harris) is trying to figure out “what this all means” and how the game is supposed to end. Again: what exactly is the whole purpose, the deeper meaning to everything? Well, The Man in Black and his hostage Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr.) run into Armistice (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) and her gang. He proceeds to kill a few of them, ingratiating himself to her company.
Poor Dolores, she looks adrift every time we see her. She wanders around in another little town. She meets a girl who draws a maze, like the one from the scalp we’ve seen, in the sand and then disappears. When Dolores is confronted by a man things get eerie. But William interrupts and everything goes back to normal. At least for the time being. Either way, Dolores is wary of her world more and more. “Sometimes I feel like something‘s calling me, telling me there‘s a place for me somewhere beyond this,” she tells William.
Then she fades out. The moon becomes a light above her. She’s on the ground, corpse-like. Men in Hazmat-style suits are around her. And just as quickly William whisks her around in his arms, frightening her. Reality – whatever reality she exists in, I guess – is slipping.
We start to hear The Man in Black talk about Arnold. You remember him, right? The old partner of Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins). Once more, The Man in Black takes out that bloody scalp he procured in the first episode. Now he’s hoping to get help from Armistice in order to enact the next portion of his plan. Deliciously devilish. I still don’t think he’s an older version of William. I don’t see this as happening in two different eras. Could still find a surprise there, but I just can’t see that. Moreover, with the little trickles of information concerning Arnold, I feel like Dr. Ford has skeletons in his closet, and the Bad Dude in Black just may rip a few of those out into the daylight just yet. We do get a clue about Ed Harris’ character when another visitor at the park mentions his “foundation.” Interesting stuff.

Armistice, The Man in Black, Lawrence, their crew, they head to a nearby prison. Black is tossed in alongside Hector Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro), as the police take Lawrence to the firing squad. Black plans on breaking Hector out. Outside, Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) approves some pyrotechnics. Oh, baby – the cell door gets blown open. So does one cop’s face, having taken a cigar off Black not expecting it to explode in his face. Literally. For the second time, The Man in Black saves Lawrence from an execution: “Mo–therrr–fucker,” he exclaims upon rescue.
So what’s the next step for ole Black? Armistice tells him about Wyatt, one of the men who killed everybody in her town when she was younger. Maybe there’s another hunt together in their future.
More problems for Maeve. She sees a little girl from a Native American tribe drop a wooden toy. It’s shaped just like one of the suited men from her visions. Part of “their religion,” a man from town says.

Outside, Bernard and Theresa talk about Westworld troubles. She has to meet with Dr. Ford because of his recent, troubling behaviour. The next morning she meets the eccentric man, he’s out watching equipment clearing out new space in the desert. All a part of his latest, massive narrative. Theresa worries it’ll take much longer than projected, and that it won’t do his “legacy” right. For his part, Ford believes she doesn’t exactly like being there at Westworld. She doesn’t particularly. Ford speaks of Arnold and his preference of the hosts over real people. He likewise remembers that Arnold went crazy. There are slight and plain warnings from the doctor: “Please, don‘t get in my way.”
On their adventure, Logan and William head into a gang’s hideout and start blasting. A huge gunfight erupts, as Logan has a laugh and William tries getting into it. Just like a damn video game come alive!
The Man in Black and Lawrence come across a mutilated body: Teddy Flood (James Marsden). He is in terrifying shape. All the fellas can do for him is cut him down.

Into Sweetwater rides Hector and Armistice. They unload their weapons and then their bullets into anybody nearby. Like it always is during this storyline. Into the saloon goes Hector until Maeve pulls a gun on him. Upstairs, she questions him about the drawings of the men in the Hazmat suits. “Native lore,” he tells her. She also tells him about having been shot. She wants to see if there’s anything inside her as evidence. When he won’t cut into her, Maeve does it herself. But Hector, he puts his hand in the wound to do some searching. Sure enough there is lead inside her belly.
“What does this mean?” Hector asks.
“That I‘m not crazy,” she replies. “And that none of this matters.” Right after, men burst through the door to gun Hector down.

What a solid episode. The writing is insane! I love it. Such wonderful concepts and a lot of different angles, different characters. So many things happening.
Next episode is titled “Contrapasso” – will we learn more of Dr. Ford and his old pal Arnold?

* For a review of the previous episode, “Chestnut” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “Dissonance Theory” – click here
Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) gets a gift from Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright): Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. She reads aloud a passage which speaks well to her life. Bernard talks a little about his son. By how he speaks, I assume his son is dead. She only understands personal questions as an “ingratiating scheme” and not actual bonding. We see how Lowe checks her, to see if she’s gotten the infection of her father, to see if she’s changing. “But if I‘m not the same, the next question is – who in the world am I?” she reads from Carroll’s words, as if they were her own.
And another day in Sweetwater begins. Although something’s strange. Dolores finds that pistol she’d dug up some time before when digging outside, now in her dresser. Likewise, she remembers The Man in Black (Ed Harris) and his heinous attack on her. So, maybe she’s changing after all?
Lots of people say that William (Jimmi Simpson) is actually The Man in Black and that what we’re seeing is a different period of time. However, I’m not convinced. Either way, Billy has a look around Sweetwater, noticing all the idiosyncrasies and various touches to make the world oh so realistic – from WANTED posters everywhere to actual gunfights, people thrown through windows, and much more. He ends up in the middle of one such fight, having to pull the trigger on a man threatening Clementine Pennyfeather (Angela Sarafyan). He doesn’t right away, but changes his mind after taking a host bullet. This seems to start up a little journey, as another gunslinging cowboy named Holden (Chris Browning) asks him to join along on an expedition. When William seems concerned about Clementine, his buddy says: “That‘s why they exist. So you can feel this.” Ah, now if that’s not some incredibly relevant social commentary about the role society forces on women, then I don’t know what is!
Outside in Westworld HQ things aren’t always running smoothly. Lowe feels the pressure from Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen), his superior and lover. The new narrative is causing lots of trouble, which Bernard is trying to iron out. There’s a big problem with Walter, the guy who malfunctioned in Episode 1, as if he’s “holding a grudge.” This troubles Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward), although Bernard seems to make it out to be no big deal. I feel like Lowe’s got things to hide.
Good ole Teddy Flood (James Marsden) is talking tough and pulling guns, as he and Armistice (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) gun down a few WANTED men they’ll bring in for ransom. There’s trouble when Maeve (Thandi Newton) has memories of seeing Teddy inside Westworld HQ, laying lifeless in that windowed cell being hosed down. She remembers.
And Teddy, he’s got that eye for Dolores. They go for a ride in the countryside, professing feelings for one another. Yet all of a sudden, words sound different to Dolores. She’s deviating from the normal script, challenging Teddy to leave now instead of “someday” like it always sounds. But he can’t compute that, and this still leaves her struggling for change. When they get back to the Abernathy ranch, guns are blazing.

But we cut to headquarters again where equipment is being worked on, eyes are sewn together and created out of bits and pieces. Doctor Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) chats with Teddy, wondering about his aspirations, if there’s a wish for something else, something more. We find out that Flood is merely a tool to keep Dolores in Sweetwater, for the guests, so that they can “best the stalwart gunslinger and have their way with his girl.” A truly sick storyline. Watching these ultra-human hosts be manipulated in such a God-like manner is very disturbing, an ethical view of what’s to come. Then Dr. Ford implants a memory for Teddy to remember: “It starts in a time of war, a world in flames, with a villain called Wyatt.”
Sweetwater’s new day commences. Greaser Rebus (Steven Ogg) and his boys accost Dolores in town, where they then run into Teddy. He drives them off, of course. The hero again! Later, he takes Dolores out and teaches her how to shoot a gun. When she tries to, she can’t pull the trigger. Is it an emotional aspect to her character, or is she specifically programmed not to be able to do so? Hmm. Well, things get interrupted when Teddy finds out Wyatt’s nearby, and he has a duty calling him. This leaves her all alone in Sweetwater against the brunt of the Wild West.
A stray ran off, so Elsie and Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) are out having a look at a camp in the woods where a bunch of hosts are stuck in a loop. In the stray’s tent is strange, filled with wood carvings. Elsie explains how backstories, such as this guy and his carvings, are used to “anchor” the host, in that they’re three-dimensional, not some simplistic robot. On one carving in the stray’s tent Stubbs notes the scratches look like a constellation.
Now Teddy is on the high plains, roaming about, explaining his history aside from bounty hunting. He tells people about Wyatt and prophetic messages he came back with, how he had “strange ideas.” Did Wyatt understand the nature of Sweetwater and Westworld? Did he find what The Man in Black is now looking for himself? On the road, Teddy and his gang take fire from the hills. They fire back and try to gain ground on Wyatt.

Dr. Ford notices a technician covering a host while working on it. He whips the bib off him, feeling it’s foolish. Ultimately, he’s lost all sense of these hosts being sentient, he has no care for them. Like God, making his creations then casting us aside. The idea of an absent God, giving life to a world and later leaving it to its own devices. Yet there’s something else going on behind Ford. At the same time, he has to deal with Bernard bringing him news about the hosts and their supposed “cognitive dissonance.” When Lowe talks about the entity the hosts have been talking to being named Arnold, it strikes a small chord with Ford. Then he tells Bernard about the park’s beginnings, his partner Arnold; ah, the other God. Note: the flashback sequence uses amazing technology to put Hopkins’ face on a much younger actor; it isn’t too long and works great.
Most of all, Ford tells us about how Arnold wanted to actually create consciousness, not simply replicate the feeling of it for people. He wanted to “bootstrap consciousness,” which hasn’t panned out exactly perfectly. In a way, the hosts and their slip into Arnold’s old code is like an existential crisis the way a human questions their own existence in lamentation of its limits. “Just don‘t forget, the hosts are not real,” he warns Bernard. Something Ford’s obviously long forgotten. Perhaps he isn’t callous in the way he treats the hosts, unconcerned for their dignity, but rather it’s a mechanism of not allowing himself to get too close with them.
Seeing Lowe so close to a technology that can reincarnate a human being while simultaneously mourning the loss of a son, it’s heartbreaking. The temptation to want these hosts to be real was evident before. At this point the why has a face. Bernard’s personal tragedy may yet bleed further into his professional life. I only hope not to the detriment of himself, or those around him. “This pain, it‘s all I have left of him.”

Elsie keeps wondering why the stray carved the Orion constellation, as Stubbs only makes fun of the whole thing. But there are a incredibly real repercussions for how these hosts may start acting, depending on what they end up doing. When the pair come across the stray it’s stuck down in a crevasse, bloodied from trying to climb out. And this worries Elsie.
In the hills, Teddy and his gang creep up on Wyatt’s location. Only they come under siege of a vicious tribe. As Teddy sends Armistice off, he’s butchered alive.
Again, Dolores is out for maintenance. Poor Bernard is feeling strange about their talks and wants to put her back to normal. “This place you live in, it‘s a terrible place for you,” he says. It might just be too late to reverse what Bernard’s started. No telling what that could do in the future. For now, he has someone to talk to his dead son about.
When she gets back to Sweetwater, Dolores discovers Teddy’s likely fate in the hills. With that she goes riding but finds gunshots again at her ranch. Her father’s dead and Rebus’ gang are having their fun. Out in the hay, though, Dolores finds that gun again. Can she pull it? She flashes back between The Man in Black and Rebus – and this allows her to put a hole right through Rebus, right in the neck. Things start going haywire, as she sees herself shot, but the script rewinds and she’s not, getting the jump on the man she imagined shooting her.
Around the canyon Elsie and Stubbs try getting the stray out. When Stubbs start sawing at its head, the stray comes alive and climbs out himself. He manages to get a rock, though instead of smashing Else to bits he crushes his own head in, blood everywhere, falling to the ground. Yikes.

In the midst of the wilderness, William and his buddy sit by a fire like real Wild West cowboys, chatting, sipping drink. From nowhere comes Dolores, weary and falling over. She literally falls right into William’s arms by the fire. This is definitely not the last of their story together. I still don’t think the popular theory that he’s The Man in Black works. If so, they’re doing some mighty fine dodging in the plot. I think now, with Dolores having just come from her time with Lowe, we can almost definitively say there’s no timeline issues jumping from past to present. Don’t count it out, though. Others may have proof that I’ve yet to notice.
Loved this episode, as usual. A great, great series all around, in writing and execution. Acting is phenomenal.
Next up is “Dissonance Theory” and I hope we’ll get lots more juicy bits!

* For a review of the premiere, “The Original” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “The Stray” – click here
Poor old Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood). A voice tells her to wake up, asking: “Do you remember?”
Cut to William (Jimmi Simpson) on a futuristic-looking train. A friend of his makes a quip about his sister having rode her “share of cowboys” while at the resort. So William is headed for a nice vacation stay. Or will it be? A guide brings William through to get ready for his adventure. You can tell already that he’s got a slight problem with the place.
Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward) and Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) talk about Dolores’ father having an “existential crisis” and how they’re going to fix it. She wants to make sure this episode won’t spread to other robots. That it may be infectious, as it were.
Well, Dolores, she keeps on keeping on. Yet all of a sudden that voice again – “Remember” – and she stops. Dolores sees a vision of people read in the streets, everywhere, screams in the distance. A wolf runs through the middle of the road. Dolores once again quotes her father, and Shakespeare to a baffled Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton). Uh oh. Is that the phrase which triggers the illness in the hosts?
“These violent delights have violent ends.” (Romeo & Juliet)

Inside Westworld, William and his buddy Logan (Ben Barnes) start experiencing the immersive thrills. It seems like Logan’s got lots of love for the place. He believes the resort reveals your true self. So, who is William exactly?
On a ranch, a man named Lawrence (Clifton Collins Jr.) is about to be hanged. Up turns The Man in Black (Ed Harris). He seems to not like the idea of a hanging today. A gunfight breaks out, naturally, and you know who comes out on top of that one. Bodies lay everywhere at his feet; is he the cause of all those bodies that Dolores saw? For now, The Man in Black tells Lawrence he’s going to help him discover the “deepest level of this game.” Although the bad dude enjoys killing, he’s there for something far bigger than murder.
Another great player piano cover: Radiohead’s “No Surprises” rolls on in the background. Maeve runs her sweet game on a client, telling tales of romantic intrigue. Then, the host in her glitches. She remembers a violent scene of Native Americans attacking people, blood, scalping. Quickly, the engineers have Maeve pulled out, callously talking about her like there’s nothing human inside. There is – there has to be – and still, they’re robots.

Bernard and Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) talk about Dolores’ father and his glitch. Lowe believes something else must’ve gone wrong other than him looking at that picture. The doctor tries assuaging his fears. A little cryptically. He also relays the idea that they essentially dabble in witchcraft. That if they did these things hundreds of years ago, they’d be burned at the stake.
Finally arriving in town, Logan and William see the sights, as the latter gets acquainted with things in Sweetwater. They briefly encounter Clementine Pennyfeather (Angela Sarafyan), a drunk, and Logan explains how it’s all part of the game. Every host has an adventure or story to sell you.
Out for a bit of maintenance, Dolores speaks with Lowe. He analyses her, asking specific questions to see if there’s been any tampering. He keeps telling her that they ought to keep their little chats between them. “Have you done something wrong?” Dolores asks. Lowe swiftly erases their conversation on the log and ends their conversation. Hmm.
Maeve is back in business, no glitches or problems like before. She’s up and running just fine. Except Clementine, she also complains about having bad dreams, trouble sleeping. The head mistress makes sure Clementine goes back to work, but Maeve keeps on having those visions. To the point Teddy Flood (James Marsden) notices nearby. Now it looks as if Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) and his team outside have marked Maeve for decommissioning. That’s really sad.
Meanwhile, Lowe chats with Theresa Cullen (Sides Babett Knudsen) about the goings on at the company. She’s had an especially rough day. They get on about updates, upcoming events. He says things are “back to normal” yet I’m not so sure. Even worse, Theresa refers to their customers as coming in to “rape and pillage.” Yikes. Know your market, I guess.
During dinner that evening William gets a visit from the drunk he’d helped in the street earlier. Logan gets pissed off, no time for fucking around with their game, and puts a fork into the old guy’s hand. The sight of the blood alone is enough to turn William off from it all. Logan’s more interested in having some weird sex with the host prostitutes. William isn’t so thrilled about all that, he has a lady at home.

Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) is in the workshop getting a new narrative ready. He’s a bit of a psycho, too. Uptight and genius-like. Cullen tries to make sure he’s on budget, though it seems he likes doing things his own way. Whatever works.
We find out that Dr. Ford of course has his own little elevator into the Westworld interior. He heads through the desert and comes across a young boy, one who could almost be him years and years ago. They head off for a walk together.
Back to The Man in Black, stringing Lawrence along through the desert. He’s brought him to a little Mexican cantina. Turns out Lawrence’s family is there, a wife and a daughter. “The real world‘s just chaos, an accident. But in here every detail adds up to something,” The Man in Black explains. He wants to find the entrance to “the maze.” That labyrinth from the scalp tattoo. Soon, the violence erupts. Outside we see Stubbs make a remark about The Man in Black getting whatever he wants. Afterwards, the bad, bad dude takes out a gang of Mexican men hoping to help Lawrence. No such luck. Things get a lot worse for Lawrence before they get any better. And now se know that The Man in Black is in this trip for the long run.Side note: Ed Harris is a god damn bad ass, which I knew before, but GOOD LORD! Westworld is bringing out his quality acting, as well as his nasty nature. Dig it.

The Man in Black: “When you‘re suffering, that‘s when you‘re most real.”
Out on the desert plain, Ford and the boy come across a rattlesnake. The doctor stops it in mid movement, commanding its movements. Control over every aspect of his created world. In the distance is an odd structure with a cross on it. A church? Or something far different?
Lowe heads back to his futuristic, cosy little apartment. Awhile later Cullen comes to his door to apologise for their bit of an argument. Oh, and they’re lovers. I actually hadn’t seen that coming already. They don’t do much talking, more lying in bed and such.
In the maintenance room, Elsie takes a look at Maeve. She works on the madame’s qualities, to make her more emotionally perceptive. We find out that the hosts are given “the concept of dreams,” which often comes in the form of nightmares. Elsie believes she’s got Maeve fixed up. Back to the whorehouse floor with her! A tragic life. She recites her lines, this time with more emotion than hardness. Everything in its right place. She winds up talking to Teddy along the bar, who sees right through her act. Oh, the life of the hosts. Teddy then gets murdered at the bar viciously: “Now that‘s a fuckin‘ vacation,” yells the guest.
This takes Maeve back to memories, dreams of another life. She sees herself on a farm with a little girl, her daughter. They run and play, as if they were actually happy. Only those moments bleed into those of the Native Americans attacking, nearly scalping her. A terrifying massacre, ending with The Man in Black walking through her door, impervious to her gun’s bullets. She wakes before any further bloodshed.
Some surgeons work on Maeve’s inside parts, removing bad bits. Except she comes to while being worked on, pulling a blade on the men. They try calming her back onto the table. Not good enough. She escapes into the darkened halls of the Westworld facility, trying to find somewhere to go. She sees other hosts being taken apart, hosed down. It’s too much for her. The surgeons catch up and put her into sleep mode. But will any damage linger? Maybe they’ll just take her out of commission altogether now.

In the night Dolores wakes. She goes outside and finds a gun hidden in the dirt. What will she do with it?
Inside the facility, Lee is unveiling his latest narrative – the “apex” of the park’s attractions. He’s a very confident man. His new program is called Odyssey on Red River, an immersive experience to help people understand themselves better through a new Wild West journey. But Dr. Ford doesn’t believe it’s any good. He knows the true idea of the park, and that Lee’s narrative only reveals his personality, nothing about the guests.
So into the desert go Ford and Lowe. The doctor has something brewing – “something quite original” – and it has to do with that structure out there, with the cross on top. Almost looks like an old oil well structure combined with a church. Either way, it looks intriguing. And what does Dr. Ford have up his sleeve?

Loved this episode! Amazing follow-up to the premiere. Next is “The Stray” – really glad HBO served this up early before the Presidential Debate on Sunday. A true treat for us fans that were going to perish before then.

Father Gore is first and foremost a passionate lover of film— especially horror. He's also a PhD candidate at Memorial University of Newfoundland with a concentration in postmodern critical theory. He wrote for Film Inquiry frequently during 2016-17, and is currently contributing to Scriptophobic in a column called Serial Killer Celluloid focusing on film adaptations about real life murderers. As of September 2018, Father Gore is an official member of the Online Film Critics Society, and as of April 2019 he's currently listed as a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. He has covered major film festivals such as Fantasia Festival and Fantastic Fest. During September 2019, Father Son Holy Gore will be one of several media outlets helping to present Randfilmfest in Germany.